


myrsina

by Anonymous



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Fairy Tale Elements, M/M, canon-typical Martin pining, if that tag is needed, kissing a sleeping person without their consent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 03:53:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17134439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: jon's having a hard time and martin makes an idle wish





	myrsina

**Author's Note:**

  * For [julie4697](https://archiveofourown.org/users/julie4697/gifts).



> merry christmas charlotte!! i apologize this isn't that great and i don't have the second chapter yet but i didn't want to just leave it like this! i hope it will do

Jon is depressed.

That’s the sort of statement that would get Martin a laugh from the others, either the dry amusement of ‘aren’t we all, in this mess?’ or the bitter satisfaction of ‘good, let him be.’ Jon is depressed and really, that isn’t surprising or new or even much of Martin’s business but he notices all the same, just that added slope to his shoulders as Jon goes about his way.

It’s been this way ever since he got back from America, and in terms of progress he really shouldn’t be discouraged. They have something now, a plan and progress, and even if it’s sloppy and dangerous and horrifying that’s better than they ever had before. Maybe it was something else, something that happened over seas that Jon’s being vague on. He insists it all went well enough, looks no worse for wear than he did when he left, and still.

And still Martin sits at his desk, imagines a stronger Martin Blackwood with the know how and guts to get up and walk right into Jon’s office, sit at his desk and say _talk to me, Jon, it’s been tough but we’re in this together, I have your back and I’ll listen, even if it’s small, I’ll listen and I’ll help anyway I can because I-_

That Martin might get an answer or thrown out but this Martin, the Martin forever residing in his lousy skin, he gets nothing at all.

With a sigh he pushes through reports, an organizational mess only recently becoming presentable under years of cataloguing and work. He moves one file and a little something flutters down onto the desk. When he turns the old paper over it’s a stylized old drawing of a white horse.

Martin’s lips quirk, he thinks of being a child and his mother driving them somewhere, pointing out a nearby field and saying _Martin, a white horse! Make a wish, you should always make a wish when you cross paths with one._

As he tucks the paper away into its file he thinks _I wish whatever was bothering Jon would work out well, just this once._

\--

When Jon comes in the next day the only word to describe him is harried.

He sweeps in with all the drama Martin was beginning to miss, hurried to his office then upstairs then back again only a few minutes later with a sour look. Martin looks to Basira as Jon slams the door and Basira shrugs before going back to her book. Tim didn’t bother coming in today and Martin isn’t sure if Melanie and Jon should be left alone together for long periods so he sucks in a breath and heads to Jon’s door.

“Jon?” he calls softly after knocking, takes the muffled sounds as an invitation in. Jon is sitting at his desk, frowning down at the wood before looking up to frown at Martin. “Are uh… are you alright?”

Martin’s expecting a non-answer or snapping and is surprised when Jon’s shoulders droop instead. “Yes? Yes, I- everything is fine.”

“You always say that when everything isn’t fine,” Martin points out, and Jon gives him an unimpressed look for his troubles.

“Which means I also say it when everything is fine so there’s plenty of chance that it is- fine.”

“Jon,” Martin sighs, and even Jon seems to realize he’s being ridiculous. 

“I… something strange happened,” Jon finally admits. “Nothing to do with our current troubles, at least I don’t think so, but-”

“But strange,” Martin offers, gathers his breath and lets that strong Martin he imagined take a turn. “Can I help? Is it… is it dangerous?”

“I don’t think it’s dangerous,” Jon says slowly, eyes Martin for an uncomfortably long moment before standing. “Come with me.”

“I- ok, I mean it’s the middle of a work day-” Martin starts, and the look Jon gives him helps him realize oh, maybe he’s the ridiculous one this time. He nods hastily. “Yes, alright. Let’s go.”

They go to Jon’s flat.

They _go to Jon’s flat_ , which is lovely because now Martin will have an actual idea of what Jon’s place looks like when he daydreams. It’s small but practically empty, boxes laying around that tell of a hasty move in and no attempt to unpack anything but the essentials. There aren’t that many boxes anyway, and Martin thinks with a touch of melancholy the whole place looks rather lonely. He could fix that with just a few touches, really, just a little here and there to make the flat look lived in, inviting.

He’s imagining a quilt on the old couch when Jon gestures down a short hall into a bedroom ( _Jon’s bedroom_ ) which is just as bare as the rest of it. The mattress and boxspring aren’t even on a bedframe, and Martin’s lips thin at the sight before another, far more alarming detail catches his attention.

“Is- is that- a _body?_ ”

It certainly looked that way, a man lying on the floor on the other side of the bed near what looked like a ruined bag and a smattering of papers. He’s tall and sharp, covered in tattoos, black hair painfully obvious with its dye but suiting either way. If he wasn’t a corpse on Jon’s floor Martin would say he was rather handsome, in a goth way. Just scary enough around the edges to worry but not frighten off.

The thing is he _is_ a corpse on Jon’s floor. “Jon, did you-”

“I didn’t kill him!” Jon cuts him off, hands flying up in indignant defense. “He isn’t even dead, he’s… he’s breathing? Maybe he’s in a coma.”

“If- why didn’t you take him to the hospital then?” Martin asks and Jon looks between Martin and the man helplessly.

“Because he’s dead- or he’s supposed to be.”

Martin makes them tea as Jon explains, Gerard Kaey (who Martins knows, remembers statements of) and what happened in America. He brought Gerard back here, somehow managed to get human flesh through customs and he was going to honor Gerard’s final wish when- well. When he woke up to find the page gone and Gerard’s living body in its place.

“Um so… you said he’s alive? He has a pulse?” Martin asks after taking another look around Jon’s kitchen, just as empty as the rest of the house. If they weren’t dealing with a man who should be a piece of skin he’d have quite a few nagging words about that.

At least there was tea leaves, nearly stale but usable. Jon’s hands curl around the mug Martin passed him and he tries not to get drawn into the long line of Jon’s fingers over dark ceramic. “Yes,” Jon answers, snapping Martin’s attention back to his face. “He’s breathing and he has a pulse. I spoke to Elias about it today and he was about as helpful as was to be expected. He told me not to waste time on it and keep to task.”

“Keep on task? With a bloke just- just sleeping in your room?”

“My words almost exactly,” Jon agrees dryly. “Mine were a bit harsher.”

Martin begins to pace, worrying at his lip as he fumbled to grasp the situation. No wonder Jon invited him over, it was all so baffling seeing really was believing. “So… shouldn’t we bring him to a hospital though? He needs fluids and care, maybe brain scans? I know he’s technically dead but-”

“He’s technically dead and has made many enemies over the years,” Jon answers quickly, and Martin’s surprised at the protective note to Jon’s tone. “Also I don’t think he’ll need sustenance. I think he’s in some sort of stasis.”

Martin’s stare pointed in its need for a little more information than that, setting Jon to sigh as he explains sheepishly, “When I first found him I tried to wake him up, water and sounds. I may have pricked his finger with a needle, just to see if-”

“Jon!”

“I needed to know how he’s react!” Jon pushes back defensively. “And it’s a good thing I did, the minute blood welled up it just vanished, as if it was never there.”

“Please don’t tell me you went poking him with a needle after to make sure,” Martin requests, and to Jon’s credit he just says nothing at all, lips thin. Martin tries not to find it cute and frustrating at the same time. “So he can’t be hurt.”

“And he’s shown no signs of dehydration, you can see for yourself. He’s been… been _around_ for long enough he should.”

“Well that’s… weird,” Martin finally offers, running a hand through his hair as he tries to think. Difficult when there’s this little bubble of happiness deep in his gut, the camaraderie of being turned to and the way Jon looks at him for advice. People didn’t really look to him for advice, not ever, and even if Jon’s on his last limb it’s… nice. “Maybe leaving him on the floor isn’t a great start.”

“He’s _heavy_ ,” Jon snaps, arms crossing defensively as if trying to hide the fact he was not a man built for heavy lifting. “I didn’t want to hurt him.”

“I mean you did poke him with-”

“ _Martin._ ”

“Right,” Martin tries not to smile. “C’mon, we can get him on the bed together- or I suppose the couch?”

“The bed is fine,” Jon dismisses, and when Martin stares at him he looks away. “I can take the couch.”

There’s a finality to Jon’s tone that makes Martin’s lips thin as he nods, reluctant to push Jon any further than he already had. Maybe it’s the quiet thrill of _helping_ , of being useful, of his shoulders bumping Jon’s as they walk back to the room and move Gerard Kaey to Jon’s bed. 

It’s certainly in the way Jon looks at him after, tired but softer around the edges, shielded in his awkwardness. “Thank you, Martin.”

“Of course,” Martin answers, and means it so very much when he continues with, “Anything you need.”

\--

The next day Martin searches for all statements he can find involving Gerard Kaey, takes them to his desk in the early, lonely morning of the Archives and listens. 

It’s all… refreshing. Refreshing, of all things. Statements tended to be the worst moments of a person’s life, the last moments, dreadful pains that lingered so deeply they could never hope to go away. Martin’s seen enough of the aftermath in follow up interviews, in research. A statement’s post script was usually a corpse.

Gerard Kaey’s adventures and appearances were hardly in lovely stories but in several he helped. _Helped_ , like some sort of supernatural vigilante or wise old soldier who knew the ropes. Even Jon’s tone holds a level of fondness for the man in his supplementals, and though it sends a heady rush of jealousy through Martin’s veins he rather understands. It was nice to read a horror story with a hero that wasn’t simply doomed to fail. It was nice that Gerard tried.

Jon is less frantic when he comes in, informs Martin that Gerard’s strange stasis continued, as silent and untouched as the moment he seemingly formed from the page.

“I’m trying to keep an eye on him, in case something changes, but-” Jon explains, sighs with a bone deep weariness that makes Martin’s stomach clench in sympathy. “There’s so much to do, I don’t have time to babysit what is essentially a living corpse.”

“I could,” Martin offers, clears his throat when Jon’s eyes land on him with kneejerk suspicion. “I mean I have time, after work, even during work really, if I bring some with me. Not all of us are running around the world and bringing home… well, you know.”

“Human flesh turned into a living person?” Jon asks humorlessly, and Martin scratches the back of his neck.

“Yeeeah, that.”

Jon’s lips lift in that way of his, a smile nearly invisible if you didn’t know to look. Martin knows where to look so he smiles back, and Jon sighs as though he’s lost an argument. “Well, fine, I suppose it isn’t too trying or dangerous a task. We mustn’t let our focus stray-”

“Right, won’t be any Gerard Kaey if the world ends,” Martin finishes for him.

Later that day Jon gives him a spare key and Martin tries to bite his tongue until Jon leaves. He can’t help burying his face in his hands to hide the ridiculous smile and high blush on his cheeks the moment Jon’s back turns.

\--

He brings a book the first time.

“Um, hullo,” Martin offers the not corpse on Jon’s bed. It’s Jon so there’s not much in the room, leaving him to crawl onto the bed and sit awkwardly at Gerard’s side. “I’m Martin- Martin Blackwood- I work for Jon? With Jon, you know, archival assistant. Jon’s the Archivist, which… I think you know? Jon mentioned taking your statement before- um, but I haven’t heard that one. Jon’s always been a bit protective of his statements.”

Great, he’s rambling. At least it was pretty difficult to mess up first impressions when the person in question couldn’t hear you anyway.

Despite that fact, the one where Gerard probably couldn’t hear a word said to him and couldn’t care besides, Martin finds it impossible to treat him like an inanimate object. He checks Gerard’s pillow, pulls it out to fluff it up again before gently lifting Gerard’s head to place the pillow back underneath it. Gerard’s hair has the coarse feeling that came from over use of products and general lack of care, a feeling that reminds Martin of Jon as he lowers Gerard’s head again and smiles down at him.

Great number two, he was being weird about an almost corpse. Martin ruffles himself up before pointedly turning to his book.

“I brought something, to read that is, I hope you don’t mind,” he informs, drawing his knees up and setting the book against his thighs. “To be honest it was just the first book that caught my eye at the store on the way here, I don’t really have a lot of time for recreational reading anymore.”

A pause, and then he offers sheepishly, “All the statements about Leitners don’t really help. ‘Be just my luck to find something nice and have it… I don’t know, make my hair turn into spiders? I like spiders well enough- not in a weird way, mind you- but I’d rather they just stay in the dark corners of my room and live their own lives, y’know?”

Gerard’s silence answers that, and Martin clears his throat. “Right, so reading.”

The book is called _Folktales of Greece,_ something simple but interesting and practically made for reading out loud. Martin never read it so he finds himself tripping over words, but Gerard has nothing to say on the little mistakes and Martin finds a comfortable rhythm soon after. He’s finished with Almondseed and Almondella when he glances up and notices Jon at the door, watching him with an expression Martin can’t quite make out on Jon’s backlit form.

“Oh, hi, sorry I-” Martin starts, stands, and Jon raises a hand.

“No, it’s fine, I only just got home and I- what are you reading?”

“Uh it’s greek folklore? A book on it. I thought- you know, with coma patients you talk to them, right?”

“This isn’t a coma,” Jon points out, though as he walks in to regard Gerard he admits, “I suppose that doesn’t mean he can’t register us in some way. I rather hope he can’t, I imagine it’d be dreadful to be trapped in your own body like this.”

“Any luck finding out how to help him?” Martin tries, knows from the thinning of Jon’s lips there was nothing worthwhile to report. “I guess we don’t have time to look into as we should, what with the whole… um, world ending.”

“Indeed,” Jon sighs, and he looks so strained and tired Martin’s fingers itch to make tea.

Instead he blurts out, “Would you like to get dinner?” It shocks Jon almost as much as it shocks Martin, the implication of his question sending Martin into a stuttering attempt at recovery. “I mean! I mean you know, I’m here and I could order something for us, since I’m here and since- um, since you have almost no food?”

Jon’s bafflement shifts to a sheepish look edging on defensive at that, and Martin quickly continues. “Well you _don’t._ Come on, let me get us something, alright? Maybe some curry? I’m starving.”

Martin thanks whatever small, rare lucky star he has that moment when Jon’s shoulders settle, the thin tension around his mouth easing to compliance. “I have a menu for a thai place nearby, would that be acceptable?” When Martin nods he nods once in return, turning back to the hall. “I’ll pay, you are the one talking time to help me.”

“You don’t really need-” Martin starts but Jon is gone, and Martin lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “We’re having dinner together at his house,” he whispers, then glances guilty to Gerard, like the man could somehow perceive and judge his hopeless crush.

“Um, anyway, we’ll read more tomorrow, alright?” Martin offers, then leaves the book on Jon’s nightstand before he exits.

\--

It’s strange, Martin thinks, how one small change in routine can brighten your day- week, month really. 

There’s seeing Jon, of course, there’s being in Jon’s _home_ \- even though Jon hardly treats it as such. Martin resists the urge to bring little things over to fill the empty space out, though he does bring an old quilt for Gerard and convinces Jon to invest in a chair for the bedroom. He’s surprised when Jon listens, surprised and pleased when he notices Jon making the effort to actually have groceries around.

(Maybe it’s bittersweet in its own ways, this psuedo-domesticity Martin knows is a fantasy Jon would likely laugh in his face over. A man more a corpse is what brought Martin into Jon’s home, nothing more.

Still, Martin’s learned to take what he could get when it came to happiness, to closeness, so he lets the sweet drown out the bitter every chance he gets.)

Seeing Gerard each day is surprisingly lovely in its own right. That probably goes to show what a dreadfully lonely person he was that he’s overjoyed at the company of man more a corpse than anything else, but having someone to talk to openly each day is nice. He tells Gerard of the more mundane aspects of his day, of more palatable statements, of the way Jon fell asleep with his head in his arms and woke up with crooked glasses and the sweaters sleeve imprinted on his face.

He’s not the only one who speaks to Gerard he finds, when he comes over one evening to find Jon sitting by Gerard’s side. Jon’s head is hung low, elbows resting on his knees as he murmurs just loud enough for Martin to hear.

“Is this any better than the page? Do you expect me to keep my promise when you’re like this now?” Jon’s voice is so soft, as soft as it was when he finally spoke to Martin of Sasha’s fate. “I can’t. Not like this, even if it was as dreadful, even if you wanted.”

Jon’s hand hovers, brushes over Gerard’s pale and lifeless fingers. Martin’s chest tightens painfully at the sight.

“Jon doesn’t like many people, but he seems to like you,” Martin tells Gerard later, quiet as he presses his thumb into the book’s hard corner. “It makes sense, I mean you’re the heroic sort, right? Don’t get trapped in your apartment because of worms or-”

Martin sighs, lets his shoulders slump as he regards the curve of Gerard’s knuckles, the same hand Jon nearly grasped before. He reaches out, hesitates, fingertips close enough to Gerard’s skin he can feel an unexpected warmth rather than the expected corpse cold.

“It’s not even about Jon, not entirely. I just wish… I wish I knew how to make anything better.” Martin closes his eyes, breaths out his lingering melancholy as best he can before offering Gerard a smile. “Maybe you can give me pointers when you wake up, yeah?”

Silence answers and Martin swallows, pulls open the book. “Ok, where were we?”

\--

Martin’s tidying around Gerard’s bed when he finds the tape. Cassettes are so familiar now he doesn’t bat an eye at first, picks it up and sets it on the bed so he can finish sweeping up. Later he’ll think it was strange for finicky Jonathan Sims to leave a statement lying around, pointedly where Martin would eventually find it. He knows Jon well enough to know that kind of strange subtly wasn’t him at all, but the idea that the tape somehow wanted to be found- well, he doesn’t think about it.

When he gets back to the tape he freezes when he sees ‘Gerard Kaey’ written on the label in exactly the spot all statement givers went. Later he pretends he waffled over the decision, took Gerard’s privacy into account, but he didn’t. Martin reaches for the recorder tucked in his bag without a moment’s thought.

The hunters, Jon then Gerard, that’s what the tape gives Martin. Gerard’s voice slots into place so easily in Martin’s mind, spilling out of Martin’s image of an animate Gerard Kaey speaking with that faint rasp. More than that though, more than the bargaining Jon and Gerard do, more than the monster stories and the fact Jon brought Gerard Kaey back to England to die, more than all those things Martin’s heart shakes in his chest at Gerard’s last thoughts being about his mother.

It sticks with Martin through the whole tape, the stubborn refusal to let her name escape, the scared desperation of a dying man made a boy just for a moment. Mary Kaey is hardly a mother, and when Gerard asks Jon to call him Gerry Martin finds his eyes are damp. He stares through the blur at Gerard, swallows disgust at his stabs of jealousy for this man, swallows harder around the feeling of _understanding_ radiating through him when Gerard speaks of Mary Kaey. His mother was nothing like that, nothing at all.

(His eyes leak all the more when he insists that, betraying him, stinging as he tries to blink the traitorous evidence away.)

Martin opens his mouth, breath shaking as he tries to think of what to say to Gerard’s impassive face. He thinks of asking _can I call you Gerry?_ and thinks of saying _I’m sorry about everything you’ve been through_ and thinks of selfishly pleading _don’t ask us to destroy you, please just hang on and we’ll figure something out, if it’s terrible in there please just hang on a little longer, we can’t-_

He can’t. He closes his mouth, places a hand on Gerard’s wrist and leans over to kiss Gerard’s forehead, a gesture the boy that was once Gerard Kaey deserved hundreds of times over from a mother who likely never did. 

When Martin pulls back, when he opens his eyes he notices a flush to Gerard’s cheeks that wasn’t there before, a flutter of his eyes that stills too quickly. Martin stares, helpless confusion as that warmth of color on Gerard’s cheeks doesn’t go away. His breathing seems deeper, his expression softer, and Martin looks around wildly before his eyes return to Gerard once more.

“What?”

Gerard doesn’t answer, says and does nothing when Martin touches the back of his hand to check that yes, he did seem warmer, more alive. Information does a rather spectacular bellyflop in his brain, useless splashing until he thinks _ok, I kissed him and he… jumpstarted?_

Martin’s bright red as he leans down to kiss Gerard’s forehead again, pulls back up sharply but sees no change other than what already occured. “Ok, um, alright, so is this… like Sleeping Beauty? Or Snow White? I don’t- I mean, should it be on the lips? Oh my god, are we supposed to be soulmates? True love’s kiss?”

Martin sways on his feet, sitting down as he regards Gerard with a hint of panic. “That’s moving a little fast, isn’t it? Not that you don’t seem very nice, I just-”

He just. Martin swallows, stands with renewed purpose because he might as well see if there was any truth to his wild imagining. With a bracing breath he leans over, pecking Gerard on the lips and-

“Nothing,” Martin says, rubbing the side of his neck and battling the strange burst of disappointment. “Um, sorry about that. Just needed to be sure.”

Gerard has nothing to say to it, but when Jon gets home he has plenty to say when he sees Gerard.

“Lord, he looks… alive,” says Jon, a bright spark of excitement in his tone as he circles the bed to get a better look, not noticing Martin’s awkward shuffling. “What happened?”

“Um,” Martin starts, looks to Jon then looks quickly away when Jon turns his probing gaze to him. “Promise you won’t get mad? Or make fun of me.”

“What did you do,” is Jon’s immediate response, and Martin throws him a frown.

“You’re starting already!”

“Ugh fine, fine, just tell me what happened, will you? Whatever it is it had good results.”

“Yeeeah,” Martin mumbles, sighs then lets his hand drop as he faces the awkward music. “I found your statement? Or Gerard’s statement, the one he made when you um… summoned him.”

“What? I thought I brought that to the Archives,” Jon asks, baffled but then contrite when Martin gives him a pointed look for interrupting. “Continue.”

“I listened, and I know, I know, maybe I shouldn’t have but! But I see him every day, I couldn’t help it, and it was so… so _sad._ He deserves better than any of that and I… I might have kissed him?”

The blank look Jon gives makes Martin quickly amend, “On the forehead! Just on the forehead! Ok, and when I did his eyes fluttered and he became warmer and I tried again just to make sure and it didn’t work, and I may have also pecked him on the lips just to be sure but that didn’t work either so-”

“Martin,” Jon holds up a hand, face pinched. Martin goes quiet, nervous as Jon rubs his temple. “Are you honestly telling me you just… you nearly woke him through a _kiss?_ This isn’t a Disney movie for god’s sake.”

“That’s what happened!” Martin insists, fervor simmering back to nerves as he prods at an idea he couldn’t help but dwell on as he waited for Jon’s return. “Maybe um… maybe you should try?”

“I should- I should _kiss_ him?” Jon asks as though Martin asked him to grow another head.

“Yeah, I mean you know him better and it’s the only thing that’s had any results so far. Maybe there’s some other reason behind it besides fairy tales but- but it’s the best we have, isn’t it?”

Jon gets that look, the one where he knows Martin isn’t necessarily wrong and he hates he has to admit as much. His eyes go to Gerard, the faintest softening around the tense lines of his face as he sighs. “Fine. Fine, if only to prove this is nonsense.”

So that’s how Martin watches Jon lean in, hesitant before his lips brush Gerard Kaey’s cheek. Just like before Gerard’s eyes flutter but this time his head turns, his lips brushing Jon’s and making Jon yelp and jump back. There’s an ‘I told you so’ somewhere in Martin, buried under wide eyed shock as Gerard Kaey sits up with a bleary blink as he looks between them.

“Really mucked up burning my page, didn’t you?”


End file.
